American Airlines flight attendant arrested, accused of recording girls using plane toilet
A flight attendant working for Fort Worth-based American Airlines was arrested Thursday after he was accused of trying to record a 14-year-old girl with a camera hidden on the toilet in an airplane bathroom, the FBI said.
The incident occurred on Sept. 2 on an American Airlines flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Boston, federal authorities said in a news release Thursday.
The defendant, 36-year-old Estes Carter Thompson III, of Charlotte, also possessed recordings of four more underage female passengers using lavatories on board flights he had previously worked, the FBI said..
“The deeply disturbing conduct alleged here is something no parent or child should ever have to worry about when they travel,” Massachusetts District Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in the release. “Mr. Thompson allegedly used his position to prey on and surreptitiously record innocent children, including unaccompanied minors, while in a vulnerable state aboard flights he was working.”
Thompson is charged with one count of attempted sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of child pornography depicting a prepubescent minor. He was arrested in Lynchburg, Virginia, and will remain in custody pending his initial appearance in federal court in the Western District of Virginia. He will be scheduled to appear in a Boston federal court at a later date.
On the September flight, the 14-year-old girl first tried to use the main cabin bathroom closest to her seat, but it was occupied, authorities said. Thompson then approached her and escorted her to a bathroom in the first-class section of the plane, according to charging documents.
Thompson briefly entered the bathroom before the girl, telling her that he needed to wash his hands and that the toilet seat was broken, the documents state. When the girl went inside, she saw red stickers on the underside of the open toilet seat lid. The stickers read “INOPERATIVE CATERING EQUIPMENT” and “REMOVE FROM SERVICE,” and “SEAT BROKEN” was hand-written in black ink on one of the stickers, authorities said.
Beneath the red stickers, Thompson had concealed his iPhone to try to record a video, according to court documents. The victim used her phone to take a picture of the stickers and the concealed iPhone. The girl told her parents what happened, and they reported it to other flight attendants. The girl’s father also confronted Thompson, and the plane’s captain notified law enforcement.
The family of the teenage girl who found the cell phone taped to the toilet seat is suing American Airlines, alleging the company did not take prompt action after the incident was reported to flight attendants and that the girl is emotionally distressed. The lawsuit was filed late last year in U.S. District Court in the Western District of North Carolina. The family is seeking a jury trial, and damages to be determined at trial.
American said in an emailed statement: “We take this matter very seriously and have been fully cooperating with law enforcement in their investigation, as safety and security are our highest priorities.”
A search of Thompson’s iCloud account revealed four additional instances between January and August 2023 in which Thompson recorded girls between the ages of 7 and 14 years old using bathrooms on airplanes, the FBI said. Investigators also found more than 50 images of an unaccompanied 9-year-old passenger, including close-ups of her face while she was sleeping, and “hundreds of images of AI-generated child pornography,” the release said.
All of the victims have been identified and their families have been contacted by law enforcement, the FBI said.
Thompson could face up to 50 years in prison if convicted.
